I recently posted an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 titled 8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0.
To follow up, here is an additional excerpt from Chapter 17 on pilots.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT PILOT TEAM MEMBERS
The selection of pilot team members is a major factor not just in the success of the pilots, but also whether useful lessons are learned and the successful migration of the pilots into other parts of the business.
The reality is that there is usually limited choice in selecting pilot team members. However since it is such an important driver of success, it is important to understand the characteristics of great pilot team members, and to apply this to the degree possible in bringing the right people on board.
There are five key aspects to a great pilot team member.
1. Enthusiasm
There is no substitute for enthusiasm in a pilot. As such, in most cases the best pilot team members are those who are clamoring to try something because they think it will make them more effective in their work.
Enthusiastic team members will:
• Want to be involved in the pilot!
• Think there are better ways to do things than current approaches
• Be happy to try new things
• Put up with immature systems
• Put in extra time and energy now for the potential of worthwhile results later
• Actively suggest and try new ideas to make the pilot work better
Read more →
Essential capabilities: Aligning cultures and processes across blurred organizational boundaries
By Ross DawsonOn my earlier post on Social CRM Larry Irons asked a great question about how organizations can engage effectively with their customers and partners when much of their customer support is outsourced.
While there are no easy answers, there are two organizational capabilities that are increasingly critical for success. The first is developing clear strategies for what should be done inside the organization, and what should be done outside. These are difficult decisions to make, and even harder to implement well.
The second capability is aligning business processes with your external partners. In the following excerpt from Chapter 3 of Living Networks (available for download here), I describe the approaches call center giant Convergys takes to try to align culture and process with its clients.
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5 ways to add value to information
By Ross DawsonAs I prepare a presentation to the senior staff at one of Australia’s more innovative universities later this week I just had a glance at the slides to a keynote I did back in 2002 to the Australian Library and Information Association. I used the image below showing five ways to add value to information. It still makes sense.
Social CRM and disrupting analyst business models
By Ross DawsonI recently had a chat with R “Ray” Wang of Altimeter Group about what we’re up to and our respective business models. Among other things, Ray said that Altimeter wants to work in new spaces that others aren’t covering. ERP is boring. But Social CRM, for example, is on the leading edge of where value is being created, but traditional analyst firms are not working.
As a recent entrant to the market (the firm was founded in July 2008 by Charlene Li and now has 7 partners), Altimeter has the flexibility to use different approaches to the existing large firms. In this case, instead of charging in the thousands of dollars for a cutting-edge analyst report, it has launched Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management for free, enabling anyone to embed it on their own site, as I have below.
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Key management trend: Reputation management
By Ross DawsonI was recently interviewed for a report created by the executive forum Vistage, titled 12 Trends That Will Define Business in the “New Normal”.
One of the key trends covered in the report in which they drew on my thoughts is reputation management, excerpted below.
Twitter stats: more users are engaged, one-third have more followers than following, the most prolific Tweeters have around 1000 followers
By Ross DawsonBarracuda Labs’ annual report contains some interesting analysis of the online space, including Twitter and security issues. A few highlights:
* Only 21% of Twitter accounts are active i.e. at least 10 followers/ 10 following/ 10 tweets
* Even so, there has been an increase in activity from dormant accounts – 40% fewer accounts have zero followers compared with six months ago
* 66% of users are following more or the same as the their number of followers (i.e. you are in the “top” one third if you have more followers than following)
* The most prolific Tweeters are those with around 1,000 followers. Those with more followers tend to tweet less – see chart below.
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Designing and running executive offsites and retreats in Asia
By Ross DawsonI am just back from Phuket in Thailand where I facilitated the offsite session of the top 120 executives of a major professional services firm in Asia. This is staple work for me. My role at these kind of events ranges from delivering a keynote presentation that brings forcibly home the key themes of the event, for example change or innovation, to in some cases designing and facilitating the entire event, particularly when it is focused on strategy development.
While executive offsite sessions are common to business around the world, there are a few specific dynamics to take into account for organizers of retreats in Asia.
Diversity
Asian countries, economies, and cultures are far more diverse than those, for example, in Europe. There are often different priority strategic issues across country operations, and management structures need to vary between operations. Offsite objectives and structure should reflect that.
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Five key characteristics of great pilot team members
By Ross DawsonI recently posted an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 titled 8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0.
To follow up, here is an additional excerpt from Chapter 17 on pilots.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT PILOT TEAM MEMBERS
The selection of pilot team members is a major factor not just in the success of the pilots, but also whether useful lessons are learned and the successful migration of the pilots into other parts of the business.
The reality is that there is usually limited choice in selecting pilot team members. However since it is such an important driver of success, it is important to understand the characteristics of great pilot team members, and to apply this to the degree possible in bringing the right people on board.
There are five key aspects to a great pilot team member.
1. Enthusiasm
There is no substitute for enthusiasm in a pilot. As such, in most cases the best pilot team members are those who are clamoring to try something because they think it will make them more effective in their work.
Enthusiastic team members will:
• Want to be involved in the pilot!
• Think there are better ways to do things than current approaches
• Be happy to try new things
• Put up with immature systems
• Put in extra time and energy now for the potential of worthwhile results later
• Actively suggest and try new ideas to make the pilot work better
Read more →
The Evolution and Key Success Factors of Web 2.0 in the Enterprise
By Ross DawsonThis morning I did the opening keynote at IBM’s Collective Intelligence BusinessSphere conference in Melbourne. It was designed as a brief and punchy opener to provide a big-picture context to what collective intelligence means for organizations and the key success factors.
Below are the slides. As always the slides are intended to provide visual support to my presentation, not to be useful by themselves. However there are a few visuals there that may be of interest even to those who didn’t attend.
Media Revenue Models Framework: 12 categories of income sources for media companies
By Ross DawsonAs the world of media moves beyond its traditional boundaries, media operators need to broaden their thinking about potential revenue sources. In a connected world, the possibilities transcend the classic advertising, sales and subscription models.
In my recent article Creating the Future of Media: 4 Driving Forces, 4 Strategic Issues, 4 Essential Capabilities in Media Titles magazine I wanted to point to some of the possibilities. I brought together some of what we had been working on with clients to create a Media Revenue Models framework to show some of what is possible.
Of course a key aspect of potential revenue streams is the value creation that merits payment. While the general categories of value added by media have not changed, their relative importance definitely has. To understand potential revenue models, you must also be clear on the distinctive value add of your media offering.
A few things to note. First, this is a draft, and while I haven’t had time to update it yet I’ve already been given some additional ideas to complement this. I’d love to hear any other perspectives or ideas that would add to this. Second, this only looks at revenue, not at business models, which look at how resources are brought together to create value. We’re in the process of developing a media business models framework. And third, the primary purpose of this is to help executives to think in new ways about their own business. I have already found it very valuable in strategy sessions with clients in generating new strategic options and ideas.
Here is the content in text form:
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The future IS gaming
By Ross DawsonI recently finished reading the techno-thriller Daemon by Daniel Suarez. It is certainly not literature, but it is a fast-paced thriller that I found hard to put down. It posits a world in which a genius who creates online games builds a systems that makes the entire world into what is effectively a game, with an augmented reality interface, and in which individuals earn points for tasks that give them higher ranking.
I have long thought it is inevitable that much of our work and play will take place in what are effectively game environments.
In Jesse Schell‘s presentation at DICE (hattip: Kevin Kelly/The Technium) he gives an array of fantastic ideas about the intersection of reality and gaming. After covering how many games such as Wii, Guitar Hero and Webkinz are bring the real world into games, he goes off (from around 18:00) on a rapid-fire string of suggestions about how every aspect of the world can be made into a game.
It is intriguing that mobile social networking, which I have written about since its early days in 2002, has only taken off when Foursquare made it into a game. As people become more familiar with gaming environments and concepts, it seems natural to bring in gaming aspects to more parts of our life. Dangerous things that way lie, but it is inevitable that games and what we think of as reality will be merged to an extraordinary degree.
[UPDATE:] Tom Foremski says why he thinks this is a scary future.